Address by Rector Vladimir Litvinenko

“The institute, of course, is a specialized one – it’s brilliant!I think it’s one of the best in the world.
The St Petersburg mining institute. It is simply one of the best in the world:
In technical terms and in terms of how well it trains specialists.
So we have plenty to be proud of. ”

Vladimir Putin. 16 July 2013

The legacy of Peter, the ideas of Lomonosov, the will of Catherine [the Great] – with these, in 1773 (1 November by the new calendar), 240 years ago in the Russian Empire, an engineering college for mining was created – the first higher technical educational establishment in the country.
By 1804 the college had become the Cadet’s Corps, with a building specially constructed by Andrei Voronikhin.
Hundreds of resource fields, engineering projects, mining technologies, and Alaskan gold have been discovered by the university’s graduates. The whole world knows the name of Academician Alexander Karpinsky, the encyclopedist and geologist, and the first elected president of the Academy of Sciences; Evgraf Fedorov, creator of the crystal-chemical method in mineralogy; Vladimir Obruchev, outstanding geologist and talented writer; Nikolai Kurnakov, inventor of physic-chemical methods in metallurgy; Nikolai Köhl, famous surveyor and founder of the national surveying and photogrammetry and surveying school, Dmitry Nalivkin, famous geologist and palaeontologist; Ivan Gubkin, geologist and a founder of naphthology; Alexander Herman, founder of the national school of mining engineering; Alexander Skochinsky, founder of mining aerology, Ivan Efremov, science fiction writer, palaeontologist and founder of taphonomy, as well as being a philosopher and cosmist.
Today the National Mineral Resources University, the Mining University, gives a professional education on all levels, bachelor, master and specialists with diplomas for Russian and foreign citizens. More than 16.5 thousand people study here in various faculties: oil and gas, geological prospecting, mining, construction, mechanics, energetic, processing of mineral raw materials, economics and also in the fundamental and humanities departments. The university has a military department.
Students, after receiving theoretical training, take part in practical work placements at the study centers of the university, located in the Leningrad and Novgorod regions, and then at production plants of the university’s partner companies.
At the Mining University we train engineers for companies such as PhosAgro, Novatek, Gazprom Neft, Surgutneftegaz, Russkaya Mednaya Kompaniya, Metal Group, Uralkaly, Norilsk Nickel, Alrosa, Metropol, Total, Ferbundnets Gaz, Lukoil and BP.
A university is the main innovational space for the minerals and raw resources complex. Thousands of adopted invented patents, hundreds of medals from prestigious international exhibitions, tens of government prizes and awards.
The main area of the scientific research complex is more than 240,000 square metres in size. Here scientific and educational research centers are located, as well as centers of collective use, including more than 60 laboratories. The laboratories and equipment, which are of the latest generation only, are worth more than two billion rubles.
Scientists from the Mining University successfully penetrated the sub-glacial Lake Vostok and took water samples from it, and this just confirms that Russian science is a world leader.
On the basis of thorough analysis of magnetotelluric exploration and the results of seismic surveying work, we have discovered a number of oilfields with reserves of more than 30 million tons. We have created an environmentally safe production facility for underground production and comprehensive processing of high-grade iron ore of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly in the conditions of water-bearing bedrock. We have introduced innovative developments to a large part of agrochemical production on the basis of front-facing technological platforms.
The university is the initiator of a number of international projects such as for example the Russian-German resources forum, created under the aegis and with the direct involvement of Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Or the international forum and competition of young scientists, Problems of Subsoil Use. Here, lectures are given by top scientists and politicians of the world. Together with the Freiberg Mining Academy we are creating a Raw Materials university.
The Mining Museum of the University contains a number of collections placed in 22 halls covering a territory of more than 2.5 thousand square meters, with items from more than 80 countries. It is one of the three best museums in the world of its particular kind.
The St Macarius of Egypt church, raised from the ruins and consecrated by Patriarch of All Russia Alexey, is the main house church for Russian mining students.
The sports complex of the Mining University has more than once been given the accolade of being the best in St Petersburg. Both first-year students and world champions train here.
The university has six fully refurbished dormitories.
Only in the last few years due to the hard work of the university departments we have carried out a large-scale reconstruction of buildings such as the following:
Study Center No. 2, with a territory of 11 thousand and 850 m²
Hibinsk Technical College – 9000 m²
We have built
A student dormitory of high comfort level with 650 places and a territory of 19,000 m²;
A dormitory for postgraduates - 13.8 thousand m²
A dormitory for young scientists – 19 thousand m²;
Swimming pool with infrastructure - 3.6 thousand m²;
Sports center at the Kavgolovo village – 7 700 m²;
Solnechnoe study center at the Solnechny village– 3 800 m².
For 240 years now, the Mining University gives the best education in the country in the fields of practically all activities of the minerals and raw materials complex. Our guarantee of success and the high demand for our graduates all round the world is our tradition to hand down knowledge from generation to generation.
But today is only the foundation for moving ahead. Russia stands on the edge of a move from the export of raw materials model of development to that of resource innovation. And the task of the National Mineral Resources University is to provide the two main components of this process – in terms of people and in terms of science.
A university is a place where mining engineers are created, real Russian intellectuals, who are distinguished by their high level of education, high standards in their moral culture, decency, and nobility of soul.